Alezan pantheon

The ancient and mysterious land of Alezan has fascinated scholars and treasure-hunters for as long as civilized beings have written down their history. No part of this strange and dark land has fascinated more than the pantheon of its extinct race. Considering the fact that the entire civillization disappeared far beyond the memory of any current people, the fact that its pantheon continues to live on is quite impressive and ominous. The strange gods of the dead race refuse to simply fizzle out and die, as a normal deity or pantheon bereft of its believers is wont to do. Somehow, they have found a way to continue existence, acting as a sort of divine parasite, becoming an instinctual object of dread for mortals, rather than the object of their worship. Almost all sentient beings in the world have some sort of inborn concept of them, and any reminder of their existence is likely to give the willies to anyone. Any more than that is likely to drive them insane.

It is believed by the most progressive Occultologists that sometime in the distant past, the Alezanians gave our ancestors very good reason to fear them, in manners that are best left to the imagination of the clinically insane. This impression is strong enough that their gods can continue to exist feeding off of the collective fear of sentient beings.

Many have claimed they encountered these dark gods, but only when they've been thrown in an insane asylum for trying to claw their sensory organs out and or off. The Alezan Script and the ruins of Alezan give few clues as to the nature of these beings, but what little we know is hardly pleasent. Apparently, it involves tentacles and souls being eaten. Or so the madmen say.